An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
Ever seen someone doing their "unskilled job" all their life? It's just fucking magic!
The truth is that capitalists hate skilled workers, because those workers have bargaining power. This is why they love the sort of automation which completely removes workers or thought from the equation, even if the ultimate solution is multiple times more expensive or less competent than before.
Nothing is more infuriating to a boss, than a worker that can talk back with experience.
You are reverting to the capitalist brainwashing that has been repeated to you for your entire life.
Nobody is arguing that a grocery stocker requires less skill and training than brain surgery. Literally nobody. And yet you people repeat this idea over and over.
I mean this not as an attack on you but a chance to expand your worldview. Cognitive dissonance hurts, and it’s important to recognize when it’s happening so you can ask further questions.
There is no such thing as an “unskilled worker” because all jobs require skill. It’s called human skill, and it’s what enables us to build societies greater than the sum of its citizens.
The logical conclusion you are suggesting is that because some humans are less capable, they don’t deserve basic needs such as a home, reliable transportation, internet, food, utilities, etc.
And if your basic premise starts with the notion that society should not be meeting the basic needs of its people, then there’s only one thing that would convince you anyway.
Lol, you're an idiot. I am a skilled worker. You couldn't do my job to save your life.
We know you aren't arguing that every job requires the exact same degree of skill. All that we want to do is say that there are jobs whose required skills are quick to acquire and are therefore easily replaceable. Meanwhile, there are other jobs whose skills take a long time to acquire and are not easily replaceable. We use the term "unskilled labor" to refer to the former group and "skilled labor" to refer to the latter group as a point of convention. When people claim that unskilled labor doesn't exist, they imply that every single job requires skills that are slow to obtain and therefore every worker is difficult to replace, which is clearly false.
Where is the cognitive dissonance? Where is the contradiction in distinguishing between jobs that require trained applicants and jobs that don't require trained applicants?
If you decide to use "skilled worker" to mean a worker who has a skill, then you are correct that "unskilled workers" do not exist. Unfortunately, that's not what the phrase "skilled worker" means. If that's how you use the term, then you're talking about something different to everyone else.
The logical conclusion of "unskilled labor exists" is simply that unskilled labor exists. You cannot jump from the observation that "unskilled labor exists" to the claim that "some people don't deserve their basic needs." It's a non sequitur, and it's not a position anyone in this thread would support.
This is a straw man. No one here has expressed the position that society shouldn't meet the basic needs of its people. The position you are arguing against is the position that some jobs require training before hiring and others don't. Again, that's just what people mean when they refer to skilled labor and unskilled labor.
I think you're taking the terms too literally. Unskilled labor doesn't actually mean the jobs require zero skill. It means they can be learned and mastered relatively quickly compared to other jobs. I've had many jobs and I've done both skilled and unskilled labor.
When I worked in retail I was able to learn the job in a day and master it in a month. For my current job as a software engineer I've been learning for over a decade and there's still a lot I don't know. The technology changes rapidly and you have to be constantly learning to keep up. I'm significantly better at my job now than I was when I only had 5 years of experience.
That said, ironically it's people that work in skilled jobs that are generally the biggest advocates of social policies for the good of all. I believe everyone should have all of their basic needs met just for existing, and I would gladly pay more taxes to contribute to that goal.